A woman convicted of sexually exploiting her four-year-old boy to satisfy her boyfriend will serve her original sentence, despite the Crown’s appeal for stricter punishment.

The Red Deer woman, who can’t be identified because of a court-ordered publication ban protecting the identity of the victim, was sentenced to a total of three-and-a-half years in prison for sexual assault, making and distributing child porn on May 25, 2017 in Red Deer Court of Queen’s Bench.

The Crown Prosecutor appealed the sentence, petitioning for five years incarceration instead.

“The Crown appealed the sentence, and argued that the sentence was disproportionate to the gravity of the offence and the high degree of responsibility of the offender,” said Katherine Thompson, Alberta Justice and Solicitor General communications advisor. “The Crown position was that the sentence was demonstrably unfit and sought an increase to five years’ incarceration.”

In a 2-1 split decision, the Alberta Court of Appeal upheld the sentence from Justice James Glass.

The woman was arrested at the daycare where she worked on June 1, 2016. The arrest came after Peter Allen Cash, of Idaho, was arrested. The Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force investigated Cash for uploading child porn files. When police arrested Cash, they found images the woman had sent him depicting her and her son.

Police do not believe the abuse occurred at the daycare the woman worked at.

Cash was sentenced to up to 40 years in prison for nine charges of child exploitation in September 2016.

The two met through a social networking site in January 2016 and never met in person. Over the next six months, the woman took at least 26 pictures of varying sexual exploitation of her child and sent them to Cash. The couple also shared 16 images of child porn and three videos.

Justices Shelia Greckol and Jo’Anne Strekaf upheld the original three-and-a-half year sentence, saying the sentence was not demonstrably unfit.

Justice Thomas Wakeling wrote a dissenting opinion, saying he would have imposed a three years and seven months sentence for the sexual assault charge, which was only two years in the original decision. This would bring the woman’s total sentence to five years in length.